Suhaib Webb – Usul alFiqh Lesson Three Understanding A Method To Introduce Usul alFiqh
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Welcome back to our
discussion
on Al Waraqat.
And as you can see, it is certainly
Waraqat
Mashallah. And,
someone sent me actually a really good question,
Alhamdulillah.
And that was that in the introduction to
the text,
Sayedid imam said,
Right? These are a few pieces of paper.
And I mentioned that
is what's called Jamr Ussalama.
Right? Like Al Muslimat Al Mu'minun. And these
are from, of course, a section of nouns
called Jamr Uqila
that mean like 3 to 9.
So then the person asked me like, what
about al Muslimoon, wal Muslime'at in the Quran?
For
example. Does it mean only, like, 3 or
9? SubhanAllah. Or 3 to 10?
So this is my fault, and this is
my mistake that,
Jamr Okela,
if they have l in front of them.
Right? Aliflam, like Alhamdulillah.
Right? When that happens,
L in rhetoric,
of course means istirak,
Right? It means it's one of the things
in Usu that means like generality,
universality.
So, for example, Alhamdulillah
means like all praise is due to Allah.
So Alhamdulillah
when we say Al Muslimoon,
Al Muslimat
it means like all of us, not just
3 to 10.
Alhamdulillah. Inshallah, I hope in the future I
can teach,
a course on balayrah. I plan to teach
it at my school Swiss, but also
I would like to teach one here as
well for everybody as well as Montek InshaAllah
logic so that we can, like, build, inshaAllah
our understandings
and repertoire of knowledge.
He said these
contain
Fosoul means like chapters,
issues,
different, you know, issues of discussion. You know
what's interesting? I heard one of my teachers
about Al Warakat is like Hajmuhu Sarir wa'ilmuhu
Kabir. You know, it's a small book but
like, Masha'Allah, the knowledge it contains is huge.
I heard from another teacher who said that
all of the major books, like, if you
look here
well, not here, but actually over here.
I don't know if you can see. Let
let me see if I can turn this
a little bit. But like this text, Al
Ivej
by Sayna Imam Assuki,
Rahim Muhullah.
Like that's a large book in the Usul
al Fakhmasha'Allah.
And all those books contain
the
issues addressed, the fusul and the waraqat.
In fact, I heard another teacher say that
you will find things in the waraqat
that you won't find in other al Mu'tawalat.
You like everything that you find in the
waraqat you're gonna find in these massive massive
books,
So let's not think that just because it's
like small in size
that, like, it doesn't have great benefit. A'udhubillah.
Allah
teaches us in the Quran
and through the sunnah of Sayyidina Aqwan to
think about quality more than quantity. Right? He
says after
Right?
Allah created life and death so that we
could see which one of us is best
in doing deeds, not the most as Imam
Al Tabari says. Allah didn't say, akhthara amala,
he said, ahsana amala.
And we know in Surat Al Baqarah, Allah
says,
How many times did a small group overcome
a large group? So this is an important
issue in tarbia, you know, they ask imamishal
to be,
sahib
almohfaqat,
excuse me. Like, how did you become so
well versed in knowledge? And he said, like,
I I took my time. I took it
piecemeal by piecemeal. I didn't rush. I would
master a subject and then move on to
the next one. We live in an age
now where everybody's rushing. And the poet says,
You know, usually the one who rushes slips,
the one who takes his or her time
succeeds.
So let's not
take this book for granted.
2 other points that need to be made
is that this book is written for beginners.
Right? Al Muqtari'en.
So the approach of the imam is going
to fall kind of in in in that
lane,
unlike his book Al Burhan, which is like
subhanallah for the Malekis is one of the
premier books and books in o'ulsulufik.
And then also
my job is to
kind of curate this as though we're walking
like we're on a tour together.
And my job is to familiarize you with
things,
but then also at times to introduce
things that I know are coming later if
you plan, for example, if you're a student
in Medina or in Elazar or somewhere,
you're going to need some of these things
because
you're not going to complete your education by
staying in your dorm and watching YouTube. It's
just not gonna cut it, man. You're gonna
have to go to the halakat of the
shuk and the halakat of the shuk.
There's going to be terminology that's needed there.
The the the the times when I was
studying,
we
were able to measure the value of our
time by how much time we were away
from the computer. Like,
away from watching things on YouTube, away from
doing anything except being in the halakat of
Ilm Masha'Allah.
And also for those of you who aren't
students
but in that sense but are students,
right? I I I want to slowly begin
to provide you bits of information that will
allow you and I, as we continue to
go through different books of over
time,
to give you certain like tools
so that when we arrive to those places,
you'll be like, okay, I remember that, I
remember that. So we ask Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala
He said, you know, that this these few
pages contain some brief information about the science
of
Surufirk.
And that Iqah here goes back to lafth
Surufirk.
In rhetoric, this is called Istikhdam.
So Allah says for example,
You know, this involves using
a a pronoun
to describe something
in a different way. It's an incredible thing
that inshallah, when we get to rhetoric, I'll
explain it to you, but just write it
down right next to the word.
It is composed of
and it is made up of 2 separate
words. We talk about what
means. We talk about what means.
And then that took us into the discussion
of the methodology of introducing a science, which
is called.
Right? And we gave the axiom.
Right? Understanding a compound phrase is conditioned on
understanding each
component of the compounds compound phrase, each part
of it.
So we noted how Imam al Haramain belongs
to an early class of scholars
who,
as a
a method of teaching,
would introduce the science by looking at it
from this compound lens. Right? Usul
fiqq. And I want you to remember this
now
that the word Usul is plural. Question is
why? Why isn't it?
I heard this years ago
when I was reading Lobal Osool Al Sheikh
Zachary Al Ansari,
from one of the Masheikh in Al Azhar.
Why is it El Osool not Osool, or
Oslu, excuse me. Why is it plural? We'll
talk about that,
I believe in 2 lessons Insha'Allah.
Anyways,
the methodology of this approach of
defining something through its compound
kind of pieces
is 5 things that you don't remember. You
want to remember this and this is going
to apply to other classical
other sciences through this classical method.
And that is number 1 is you want
to define the Modaf.
Right? And the Modaf on Ilay.
Or the and the depending on which
approach you wanna look at. So the word,
you
wanna look at it from its linguistic meaning.
That's the first step. Then you wanna look
at it through its the scientific, the field
that we're studying it through is meaning. So
that's the second step.
Then you wanna look at the word through
the linguistic meaning and then through
its
definition as a field of study. And then
the 5th step is to find the nispah,
the taalok,
the relationship
between
these terms.
And what we started last time is we
went through the word osul,
jamu, asl.
And we talked about what does mean.
And of course, there's like a lot of
discussion about this. This is not, again, what's
important to us now.
This is what the majority of the scholars
of Oslo said the word Oslo means.
And then we noted how Imam Al Haramain
does something really cool, then he says,
then he gives you the opposite of Usul
as the farah.
Because he wants to broaden your ability to
conceptualize. The goal of the sheikh is
to give you
is to allow you and I to conceptualize
what is Usul Al Firk.
And then we talked about Usul according to
the language and we talked about Usul according
to its terminology
used by the scholars of Islamic law. We
talked about Farah briefly and now that takes
us to the word Filk.
So he says
that
this is a few pieces of paper that
discuss some issues related to uso lofirk.
Right?
That,
and that word is a compound word made
up of 2 components.
We
talked about the definition of
and the definition of.
Now if you look at the word, he
doesn't do the same thing.
He doesn't get into a discussion. He doesn't
say
he doesn't say that.
Explanation, he mentions that and Sheikh Jalaluddin
Muhali also he mentions it you know al
fiqh and then they write Baynal Qosain right
in parenthesis
and fahmoo
But Imam Al Haramain, he didn't do that.
Why? Because there is a famous difference
that started during his time and then continued
till later
about what is the meaning of alfirk.
And those differences fall into 3 things. Number
1, alfirk
That firq means to understand
things whether they are explicit, implicit, or that
they are,
subtle, whether they are apparent, whether they are
big, whether they are small. Small. And this
is the definition of firk given by the
scholars of language.
This is the definition of firk given by,
Imam Al Ghazari in, Al Mustasfa who says,
al fiqhwa,
fahmobi
shay wa'ilmula'
right? Know something.
And this is the meaning linguistically that's adopted
by the majority
of the scholars of Usul al Filk in
the Madik Ishaef in Hambali schools.
There were some scholars who said that the
word
firk means
to understand something which is very subtle,
something which is not,
apparent.
So they, for example, they say, you don't
say, fakih to anna sama'afok.
They say, like, you don't say, fakih. I
understand
the sky is above me.
Sounds like a great example but as we'll
see in a minute, this is refuted. And
then finally is the definition given later on,
after Imam Al Haramain and sayna Imam Al
Azali
of Imam
al
Razi
and the word that imam or the title
that imam al Razi is given in classical
books of Ulsul is Al imam
Al
imam. It's important to understand that up until
like the 7th century, the imama
of Sayna Imam al Razi, he was Tajah
ali sunnah.
He's considered really at the head of Ahlus
Sunnah. And up until now amongst the majority
of theologians in the Muslim world, Imam al
Razi is still considered The Imam.
So when you read in the books of
Usul al Imam a Ar Razi,
I'm gonna say it again
Sayyidina Imam Al Razi said that firq is
to understand the intent of a speaker.
And of course this was refuted because this
would make things very difficult for people. It
would it would limit,
things which Allah has allowed there to be
a broad engagement in.
So the predominant
conclusion
based on the language
is that
to understand things.
To understand things. Say,
they can understand what I say. It doesn't
say they can understand the subtleties of my
speech.
They said
to
like, we don't understand a lot of what
you say.
So here, the word
Fiq implies,
you know, a generality.
Then the imam, because the book is for
beginners, he says,
You Allah. So this is actually very important
and I'm going to give you some things
now that I think will help you in
your studies, insha'Allah.
Especially if you're studying, like, trying to read
some of the classic books.
It's very important to appreciate what's going on
behind the scenes so that you can read
them properly.
So he says, well, ifilku marifa tul akem.
The word marifa
is used because it represents what's called Al
Quli'et
Al Khamsa.
And Al
Khamsa is from the science of logic,
you
know, the science of logic is taught
in most Sunni
Schools,
Madara salatiqa,
except in a few places in the Muslim
world,
right? Because as Al Akhdar, he mentions, there's
3 opinions about studying logic
and the strongest opinion that's permissible,
right, for the one who is a student
of knowledge.
So the style that Sayidna Imam Al Haramain
is writing is one that has like a
mantra involved in it. It has logic involved
in it, a Islamic
take on logic.
So what's called
these
5 kind of universal things
are applied to what are called alhudud,
And the best way I can translate Al
Hudud is definitions. But the word had,
right, means to to draw a line.
Like, these are the lines drawn out by
God.
So don't surpass them.
The the border of a country is called
those borders are called Hudud, Hudud ul Belet.
So the idea is that when defining something,
that by the end of the definition
the only thing that you have left to
imagine is that subject. That's why it's called
Had. Like it borders things in your mind.
Keeps us from being sloppy.
So now we can start to appreciate the
dangers of just like people just talking and
theorizing about Islamic law, throwing things around. Someone
doesn't have to adopt, right, this methodology, but
to appreciate,
right,
its importance is crucial.
So Imam Al Haramain, he employs here what's
called Al Quli'at Al Khamsa.
What are those 5 Kuliyat Al Khamsa? Number
1 is what's called jins,
like the genus
of something.
The second is called anar,
a type.
So aljins would be hayawana.
A type would be animals, would be human
beings.
Right?
The third is called alfoslu.
Alfoslu
is used
when a genus is mentioned. It's brought right
after it so that it can distinguish that
type
from that genus from all the other types.
Remember this is called Fasl. Fasl means to
make a border. Right? Like the word 'fasul'
in the beginning of the book.
So I mentioned a genus like rulings
and then I bring
knowledge.
Knowledge is, like, infinite in its application. Then
I bring a a word right after it
to distinguish from all the types of knowledge,
I mean this.
So if I said knowledge
of jewelry, so like jewelry
would not distinguish that knowledge
and the type of knowledge from its other
types. This is called al Foslou.
The 4th is called alhas,
and the 5th is called al Arab al
aam. I'm not gonna break all those down
now. This is gonna take us away from
the purpose of our discussion. What I want
you to remember is
Then as we read these books, I'll I'll
remind you of this moment Insha'Allah. Do you
remember when I started to talk about something
called a
Okay. Now here's the 3rd. Here's the 4th.
I like to teach these things in a
way that they're applicable. Why do I say
that? Because that's what's happening right now in
the definition
of Sayyidina Imam Al Haramain is he tries
to border in your mind
the conceptualization
of what is osu lafakr.
So he says,
Knowledge.
Well, there's like infinite numbers of knowledge.
Suddenly he mentions a type of knowledge so
that it can distinguish it from all the
other types of knowledge. What is that?
That's called
alfaslu.
So marifa tul ach, so now we can
see something. I was like, here, marifa is
like really wide.
And slowly now as we proceed through his
definition,
it's getting more exclusive,
more exclusive,
and more exclusive
until the only thing left is.
This methodology
actually covers the two conditions
of this,
style of defining something that it has to
be.
It has to be inclusive, and then it
ends up exclusive. So
he
says,
knowledge of the rulings,
sharia. So now it was knowledge of rulings,
sharia. So it's slowly getting more exclusive.
The word alati in Arabic is used, as
we'll talk about in the future.
These words, these
are used to show exclusivity.
If I say
yesterday, a guy visited me.
But if I say if I say,
Yesterday, a guy visited me, the one who
visited you the day before. Now the one
I made is specific. So
to
They
they restrict. So when he says,
more. Whose methodology
of
extractment
was through Ishtihad.
We're going to stop here Inshallah because we
have a lot to talk about in this
definition of in the future. And I'll try
to pull something again, some supplemental information to
help us as we go through the study.
But what do we talk about today? We
reviewed what we've covered.
Last time I answered a question, and then
we started to talk about the definition of
fiqh linguistically
and scientifically.
And then we talked about a methodology
of introducing a definition
right where it begins to be wide, wide,
wide.
That's all sort of felt.
We talked
about. Right?
And I showed the application of those 2
in,
the approach of Sayna Imam Al Haramain. We
talked about how alati is used to show
something is restrictive.
And next time, insha'Allah, we have to build
on that and talk about why he said
and what are the implications
of using that.
May Allah
bless you and increase you. My advice is
to be patient because the way that I
plan to teach this book is that we
don't leave anything
unturned. Like, we want to pay attention to
everything so that when you finish inshallah this
text, and it may take some time,
but you you inshallah will have quite a
bit of information,
that hopefully will be of some benefit to
you as you look to study in in
more prominent study circles with great macheikh and
ulema and also your own personal reading,
of the books of